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Saturday, January 26, 2013

Does that fabric look printed to you guys? Well, it does a whole lot to me!Surprise!! It's done with Sharpies!

How long can the magic of Sharpies go? Tremendous I say, today I bring you a cheery, bright and floral belt made with Sharpies! Time to reveal you inner doodler in this project ladies! It's great for giving as gifts too and to turn a plain dress's style a notch higher up!I did this project at night and took pictures later, so I don't have any pictures of the process but it's so easy you won't have a hard time figuring anything out!

What you'll need:

1.Sharpies in the colors you want your design to be2.Adhesive Lace3.Ribbon in any color of choice.4.A handy pair of scissors5.Hobby/craft knife6.Fabric Glue (sorry, I misplaced mine, so I just replaced normal clear dry glue in the above picture)That works well too!7.Fabric, preferably in lighter, neutral shades. Mine is white, about 3 inches wide and 19 inches long.

STEPS:1.First your fabric is gonna need a bit of ironing if it looks crinkled.My fabric is actually a stole that I had in my school uniform from when I was in school. I'm glad it came in handy!

2.Now start doodling. You might wanna lay out some newspapers down first before you start drawing on the fabric. I'm happy how it came out in the end!

3.Take the adhesive lace the same measure as the length of your fabric, peel off the backing and adhere it to the longer parallel edges of your personalized Sharpie-drawn fabric. If you wanna cover the other side of the belt too with the same plain fabric go ahead cuz some Sharpie marks are bound to be peeking there and it ain't gonna look pretty if you're gifting this to someone!

4. Now take your craft knife and a little bit from the edge, make a little sliver the width of your ribbon so that you can insert it through.

5.Take the ribbon out from the other end and glue it back down to the original ribbon that you inserted in through the sliver.

6.Now to make the ends looks more finished,switch over to the back portion, fold down two triangles from the two corners of the fabric like this:

7.Glue them down and do the same for the other end of the belt too.

8.You can keep the length of the ribbon as long as you desire. I like keeping mine long just cuz after I tie the bow, I like the rest of the ribbon to have a nice fall. :)

9.Wear it, gift it, adore it!

You can see in the above picture how I didn't fold one end of the belt to show you guys how the folded triangular end looks like :)

I would LOVE to see if you did a version yourself!Till next time!Nash <3

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Vibrant new freebie poster to download here, and a tutorial to display it just below!!

Download this poster here!
Frame it, hang it on a blank wall, or put it on your crafty clipboard for some added hobbying fun!
And now, check this out!

Bring a hint of the ongoing color block trend in your home with this fun, colourful diy and add a burst of colour to your workspace.

Here's what you need..

1.Foam board/ About an inch wider and longer than the picture that you want to frame.
2.Transparent plastic sheet.The size of your foam board.
3.Your picture
4.Readjustable adhesive glue pads/double sided tape. (actually make that an and)
5.A pair of scissors
6.Balsa wood, thin wood perfect for modelling and cutting, found most at crafts stores.
7.Cardstock in colour of your choice. I chose a nice, vibrant pink. (such a girl that I am!)
8.Paper cutter knife

Here's how:

1.Begin by cutting your foamboard like I mentioned above at least an inch wider and longer on all sides.

2.My balsa is an inch wide. Cut it down to the length of the longer side of the foamboard.In my frame I used balsa on the longer side and used colour on the shorter ones.

I trimmed out the white bordering my picture too.
Now cut the second balsa piece which goes on the other longer side the same length as the first piece

3. Now take your first balsa piece again, and from one end,mark an inch less using the second balsa pieace's width as reference. Or just take a ruler, and mark an inch less from the end if what I just said confused you.
The point is, you want the length of the balsa you cut in the previous step to be in inch lesser

4.Do the same for your second piece of balsa. I'll show you why we chopped off an inch from both the pieces in a sec.
Here, see this, we want the balsa to frame the picture like this.

5.Now cut the width of the cardstock one inch too using a paper cutter knife. That would be the same width as the balsa wouldn't it. So I use the balsa to trace the line on cardstock with pencil instead of using a ruler

6.Here's how it should look.Are you getting the gist of it yet?

7.Cut the second strip of cardstock now exactly like the first one. and here's how it's gonna look.
(Remember we haven't glued anything down yet!)

8.Now that we have our frame parts, we take the transparent sheet and place the picture underneath it and on top of the transparent sheet we glue over the parts using double-sided tape. Then remove the picture from underneath the transparent sheet and you would have the something that looks like this. (remember that we only glued the balsa and cardstock over the plastic sheet and glued nothing to picture itself.We just used it as a reference to place our parts)

9.Now using the readjustable gluepads fix the picture to the frame and then to the foamboard. You can also do this with double sided tape, the difference being that you cannot later replace the picture inside the frame.

10.Trim off any protuding edges or simply readjust until nothing of the foamboard or anything sneaky is peeking out.

This product is from their Boots Natural Collection line. I'm guilty of being taken in a lot of times by the fragrance of products. I'm not sure but I think they had other versions too, and their scent drove me nuts, they all smelled so fresh, or fruity or citrusy!

After reading what the product claims, I finally settled for this one!

Price: I'm pretty sure it was SR 30

Product Claims:

Brighten up!The revitalizing power of mango and papaya is a fruit shake for your senses, while this gentle scrub leaves your skin softer, smoother and noticeably brighter.

Directions:

Massage gently into damp skin and rinse thorughly

Ingredients:

I am so sorry for that picture which blurs out towards the bottom but my camera decided not to listen to me at that moment.

This thing contains parabens #verybad but you can see mango and papaya up there #good!

Typing that list kind of felt agitating to me for now, but I promise to list all the ingredients of an upcoming product in its review!

Consistency and Texture:

That is when my cam COMPLETELY decided to give up on me. But you can figure out that it has a gel like consistency, a bit orangey in color with microbeads swimming happily inside.

And then the smell is a nice, refreshing, fruity but not overwhelming fragrance so sensitive noses would be fine with it too! #win!

It is packaged in a tube with a flip-open cap and does not leak, so its pretty travel friendly. A very little can get stuck in the lid IF you did not shut back the cap properly, which I confess I did a few times.

Now it says its a body scrub and at the same time it says its gentle..I don't know how many of you like non-gritty body scrubs, but I like one which is highly exfoliating so that it should be more abrasive and not "gentle". So what exactly did I do? I used it as a facial exfoliation.I got normal-combination skin (Normal in winters, combination in summers). I know the whole jazz about not using these things on your face but it when it said "gentle" on the packaging, hey, it really meant it. This thing is actually gentle enough to use on your face,at least on mine, AND everyday, its mild but perfect for exfoliating! Also, it doesn't dry skin out. Of course, it doesn't moisturize it as well, but it is smoother, softer and yes, BRIGHTER! LOVE THAT! Like, yeah, visibly!

This is my favorite face scrub..till...date it actually leaves you *that* bright!

Summin' it all up:

The Good:

-Price

-Invigorating, fresh fragrance

-Flip-top tube packaging

-Travel-friendly

-Gentle enough for everyday use on the face (for combo/oily skin)

-leaves skin smoother

-and softer

-and berrrighterrr!! :))

-doesn't dry skin out post exfoliation

The Bad:

-has parabens

-not really a worthwhile body scrub as abrasive property is poor for that

-lid might get a lil goopy if not shut properly

Rating: 4.7/5 (I don't regret getting this and it not working out as a body scrub, rest of the claims are all true!)

Recommendation:

Get this if

-You go out in the sun a lot and your skin has faced some sun damage and needs brightening up

-If you are a scrub hoarder

-if you already have a tan, I think it will help clear it up

-you are looking for a scrub with gel consistency and moderately abrasive microbeads

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Well, in case you haven't heard of Shami Kababs..ever..well, I ain't blaming ya, cuz this dish is supposed to be a whole more famous with the kinda flavor it imparts!
Fear not, you can make your own batch and relish its succulency in the comfort of your own home (pardon me, if it sounds like I'm doing a commercial here)
And ah yes, check it now, you can thank me laaaaaayter! ;)

Now for a brief, Shami Kababs are like meat (mutton?) patties, well, not important it should be with mutton, you could whip 'em up with tuna and they'll be just as good, BUT, I'm gonna be showing you how to go mutton style today! Now if you make these almond shaped, they are tagged "Shami", if they are round (think cutlet round!), they are called Shikampurs, and if they are like meatballs, you call them koftas. Same thing essentially, just different shapes! (psst, Shikampurs have a neat little twist in 'em too)

Now these go very well with traditional Indian Dal and plain white rice.
Okayy..!! Enough talking and let's get this thing going!

PS:Credit for this recipe goes to my mum, I'll just brag about the photography then, which is the only thing I deserve credit for (in this post ONLY :P)

Preparation Time: at least 1 hour. This involves more than a couple of procedures.Serves: 4-6Cuisine:Indian (Mughlai)

1. Combine all the above ingredients together in a pressure cooker along with one-half cup of water and cook for about ten minutes. (till the meat is tender)

2.After the steam is released, if you still see water present, cook the mixture on low flame till the water evaporates.

3.Discard the cinnamon stick and grind the mixture (you don't want it to interfere with the grinding). Add one white of an egg. (Grind until the meat is shredded, but the paste should be on the coarse side and shouldn't be too smooth)

4.Add a handful of chopped mint,the second chopped green chili and 1 tsp. lemon juice to the mixture.

5. Knead the mixture to have a uniform even consistency.

6.Then make almond/oblong shaped patties with half the mixture for the Shamis. I'll tellya what to do with the other half in a sec.

Filling for the Shikampurs:

Now shikampurs use the same mixture we used to make the previous patties, but the twist is that they got curd in the center! Yup, delllicious and juicier!!

1. 2 tpsp. yogurt.2. One chopped onion.3. One tsp. each of chopped coriander and mint leaves4. One green chili finely chopped5.Salt to taste

7.That ^^^ right there, is your gorgeous filling for the shikampurs. Now grab that mixture we used till step 6, flatten in out and put 1 tsp. of the above filling and make a round shaped patty.

At this step, if you may wanna refrigerate it to save time in the future and just fry it right away.

8.Shallow fry on both sides, until dark brown (no, it wouldn't be golden brown in case you're wondering, it'll be a nice rich dark brown)

Stop here again!No really, I got some good news..

You're done! Yeah! Wait, not yet, drool at these pictures first. ;)

You see those cherry tomatoes up there? I know they were not in the ingredients, erm, that's because they don't go in the making, they just sit there like good kids garnishing this savory meal :D

And ahhh, that's the basic Dal up there. Please don't ask me why it looks that weird kinda of dark yellow. Because, I..don't...know. That's not how it was in real!

But, look at these Shamis, now THESE came out perfecto!

Now there, try it and tell me if it came out beautifully like mine!
See you!
<3

Monday, January 21, 2013

Here's a one-stop station for your most often used collection of treasures! And it's pretty easy too!Now I apologize for not having any pictures of the process since I did this ages back and never took pictures in between, but I'll try my best to explain it as clearly as possible!

Here's what you'll need to get started!

1Your beautiful treasury of most favorite accessories!

2.Printed/patterned ribbon

3.Super strong glue

4.Ruler

5.Shoe box with the lid too

6.Pencils

7.A pair of scissors

8.Cardstock (Thick paper or thin cardboard will do)

9.Ribbon..

and the most important which I apologize for not picturing because I somehow misplaced it..

10.Wooden skewer sticks. You use these mostly to string meat or veggies through!

Instructions:

1.Like I said earlier, this is not the same shoe box I used to make my project since I'd already done it long back. If you like the color of your shoe box like me, you could begin right away. If there's something written on your shoe box on the longer sides, you may wanna cover it up or spray paint the whole thing. Don't worry if anything's on the shorter size, the base won't be seen and the top is gonna be covered with a big, cute ribbon!

2.Next, estimate the whole shoe box into three divisions on the longer side. You can see from the picture that I have 3 rows of bangles in there.This is why you gotta estimate it into three parts length-wise.

3.Next,where you want the first row to go, pierce a hole in the side with a skewer stick, level it using the ruler. TRUST ME, leveling has all the importance in this project! Now take the skewer out on the other side, please make sure your stick isn't coming out at a weird angle

4. Now leave half a centimeter or so(but not TOO close) just beside that stick and pierce another stick through taking it out on the other side as the first one. Its important to leave a little gap between those two sticks and not let them be too close together. This makes the weight of the bangles be distributed evenly.

If you are confused, look at this:

5.That picture above obviously doesn't go by the real dimensions :) Make sure the last couple of skewers you pierce are at least off the base of the shoe box by the height of your biggest bangle otherwise you wouldn't be able to fit any in your last row!

6.Now after you are done with the shoe box, center it on the shoe box's lid so that the wrong side is facing up.

Like here:

7.Time to make dividers in the lid! Using thin cardboard cut to size, and on one edge line up some strong glue and press it down for a few secs till it stands straight on its own.Make as many as you want.8.Now pretty it up. I lined two pieces of printed ribbons length wise (use glue or double sided tape) on my box and covered the top with a ribbon since there was a little bit of printed writing up there too.And you are done! This will hold up strong for months. Don't worry about the sticks breaking. They're strong enough to support the weight! You just have to level them right and parallel!You could decorate it as you like. I figured my bangles and accessories are going to add the bling anyway, so I kept that aspect to a minimum.Scroll down for more pictures!